Rachel Korn

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Rachel Korn (around 1930)

Rachel Korn (Yiddish: רחל קאָרן), b. Häring, also Rokhl Häring Korn (born January 15, 1898 in Podliski , Galicia , † September 9, 1982 in Montreal , Canada ), was a Yiddish-speaking poet and writer .

biography

Korn was born on the rural estate "Sucha Góra" ("Dry Mountain") near the village of Podliski (today Pidlisky in Ukrainian ) as the eldest of three children and the only daughter of a Jewish farming family. She grew up in a part of Galicia that belonged to Austria-Hungary and came to Poland in 1919 (now part of Ukraine ). Both parents have been farming arable land for several generations. Growing up on a lonely farm in one of the few Jewish households in the neighborhood, she began to describe her rural existence in poetry at an early age, initially in Polish , the language in which she mainly grew up and received her first schooling. During the First World War , her family fled to Vienna . In 1918 she returned to Eastern Galicia and lived in Przemyśl until 1941 . A planned departure of the family to the USA was prevented by the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in 1939. When the Germans marched into eastern Galicia in June 1941, Korn was visiting her daughter in Lemberg . She fled with her daughter to the Soviet hinterland and spent the war years in the Soviet Union , where she finally came to Moscow via refugee camps in Tashkent , Uzbekistan . Her husband, brothers and mother stayed behind in Przemysl and did not survive. In Moscow, Korn was welcomed as a colleague by leading representatives of Soviet Yiddish culture. a. supported by Schlojme Michoels , Perez Markisch and Dovid Bergelson . After the war she returned to Poland and resumed her literary work in Łódź , where she was elected to the executive branch of the Yiddish Writers' Union. She represented the association at a PEN congress in Stockholm , from where she emigrated to Canada without returning to Poland. She settled in Montreal in 1948 and lived there until her death.

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Korn's first publications appeared in Polish in Nowy Dziennik , a Zionist daily newspaper, and in Glos Przemyski , a socialist journal. Encouraged by her husband, Hersh Korn, a supporter of the Zionist labor movement, she began to speak, read and write Yiddish after the First World War. Her first Yiddish poem appeared in the Lemberger Tageblatt , and she published consistently in Yiddish literary journals and daily newspapers for the next two decades.

Nine volumes of poetry and two collections of short stories as well as numerous critical essays were published by Korn. Two of her manuscripts were lost when the Nazis destroyed Kiev and liquidated the Yiddish publishing house where the books were to appear. Her first volume of poetry, Dorf (1928), appeared in Vilnius , a literary and cultural center of Yiddish life before the Holocaust , and received great acclaim. Her other books were published in Tel Aviv and Montreal, and Korn remained an influential writer throughout her life, publishing essays, poems, and stories in all the major Yiddish magazines in America , Israel, and Europe . She received numerous prizes for Yiddish literature , a. a. The Lamed Prize in 1950 and 1958 , the H. Leivick Prize in 1972 , the Itzik Manger Prize (highest distinction for Yiddish literature) and the Segal Prize in 1974 .

Korn's poems are characterized by the lyrical imagery and realistic portrayals of rural life and village landscapes, and their stories are famous for their deep psychological penetration and their dense, complex and unsentimental style. Her subjects about art and language, exile, human suffering and steadfastness are reflected in the titles of her works: In the poetry volumes Royter Mon (Roter Mohn, 1937), Shnit (harvest, destroyed by the Nazis in 1941), Haym un Haymlozikeyt (Heim and homelessness, 1948), Bashertkeyt (fate, 1949), Fun yener zayt lid (From beyond the song, 1962), Shirim V'odome (songs and homeland, with Hebrew translation by Shimshon Melzer, 1966), Die Gnod fun vort ( The grace of words, 1968), Oyf der Sharf fun a Rege (In the sharpness of a lightning bolt, 1972), Farbitene Vor (Altered Reality, 1977), and their short stories Erd (Erde, 1935) and Nayn Dertseylungen (Nine Stories, 1958 ). Her work has been translated into Hebrew , Polish, Russian , French and German . A volume of selected poems in English translation was published in 1982: Generations , edited by Seymour Mayne. Paper Roses (1986) is a bilingual edition of Korn's poems, selected and translated by Seymour Levitan.

bibliography

  • 1928: village . Poetry
  • 1935: Erd . prose
  • 1937: Roiter Mo . Poetry
  • 1941: cut . Poetry
  • 1948: Haym un Haymolozikeit . Poetry
  • 1949: bashertness . Poetry
  • 1958: Nayn Dersteylungen . prose
  • 1962: Fun that time song . Poetry
  • 1966: Shirim V'odomeh . Poetry, with Hebrew translation by Shimshon Melzer
  • 1968: The Gnod fun word . Poetry
  • 1972: Oif der Scharf vun a Rega . Poetry
  • 1977: Farbittene Wor . Poetry
  • 1982: Generations . selected poems, edited by Seymour Mayne
  • 1986: Paper Roses . Poems with Engl. Parallel translation, edited by Seymour Levitan

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personal data
SURNAME Korn, Rachel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Korn, Rochel; Korn, Rokhl; Korn, Rachel Häring; Herring, Rachel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Yiddish-speaking poet and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Pidlisky (Mostyska)
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1982
Place of death Montreal